Curse
by The-Mighty-Third-Draft
Summary: Bound by a terrible curse, Hermione must make a difficult choice. Hermione/Severus. Character death, euthanasia and attempted suicide. Post Battle for Hogwarts. Revamped Blood Promise.


A/N - Blood Promise revamped a bit, hopefully a better read now. Enjoy. Please R & R folks! I don't own Harry Potter and I'm making no money from this fanfic.

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Curse

The shallow pool of glistening red arterial sludge, still slick as a swimmer, reflected in his black eyes and made him look like a broken demon. This was more blood than she'd imagined Severus Snape could hold. Her trainer-toes scuffed through it. Floating dust motes settled after the fight, drifting on dying thermals to grey out his jacket.

The thought of never seeing him move again twisted her heart until she felt nauseated. He looked younger now that his face was slack in death. Touching his blue-veined, chicken-meat hands felt like a violation. Her stomach writhed. She swore she saw his eyelids twitch. Blind desperate hope wrenched a sob from he. This blood was all his and the red smile in his white throat was real. He was deader than the floorboards.

Her eyes burned with desperate, lonely tears. Would she see this vision every time she closed her eyes now?

The metallic stench of his blood stuck at the back of her throat. His skin depressed under her touch but didn't spring back. The lanky strands of his greasy hair fell heavily through her fingers. Her palm was still sore from where he'd cut her flesh with a silver knife to seal their bond.

Hermione shivered, suddenly feeling as though Death himself had breathed a great sigh onto the back of her neck. She cupped his skull, her face twisted so violently that it hurt. It hurt to breathe, too.

His skin seemed to vacuum her bodyheat away. She felt utterly alone. 'Severus. I _can't_ do this,' she sobbed.

Her heart fractured and polite tears became uncontrollable sobs. She should have staunched the wounds, stopped the snake. She'd been too frightened for Harry. Trembling, she put her head down on his chest and replayed the sensation of his embrace. It was already hazy and distant. She was losing him.

'I'm so sorry,' she said, in the irrational hope he would hear her. 'Please come back. _Please.'_

oOo

The dawn felt unusually cold, the sun distant. Sparse, pallid students milled about aimlessly, their eyes wide from trauma. Some looked at her with pity, a few with terrible indifference. She couldn't find anger inside her, only pain. Pain was now the master who had her collared and chained, beholden to its electric presence. She wanted to scream but she sensed if she did, she'd find this desolate world of loss no more populated by those who could understand.

McGonagall's hand looked longer and thinner than usual, as though she'd aged overnight. Hermione felt it too, a sudden weight of terminal knowledge. Her back ached with it and made her so tired, even though she'd slept. McGonagall offered her tea and the cup burned her skin, biting, biting into her frozen core. She'd never felt so numb.

'Naturally...it wasn't common knowledge, I know what you meant to each other. I am sorry, Miss Granger.'

'He deserved to live,' she choked.

'He did,' nodded the professor. 'As did the others. Severus was proud of you.'

Hermione swallowed her words. McGonagall's eyes were full of aching pity but Hermione didn't trust herself to speak.

'Would you like some help with him, Miss Granger?'

'I can manage,' Hermione choked.

McGonagall's footsteps faded, leaving Hermione in abject silence. The weighty presence of death sapped her spirit. The aching darkness was inside her and outside too, a barrenness of spirit that can only be adequately, painfully described with tears.

Her broken heart shivered in a sudden, cold breeze. Again she was sure Severus' eyelids flickered. She conjured a sheet and gratefully laid it over his face.

The slightest noise would have been a violation to her sacred space. The castle sat in mourning for the dead but Hermione couldn't _feel_ enough to mourn. She couldn't feel unless it was the last memory of his tentative kiss, unsure if he deserved, unwilling to tempt the fates lest she disappear. Hermine's throat burned. She was bruised all over, inside and out.

Her dreams were fraught with disturbing images. She woke with a jolt, wet with cold sweat. Her palm burned. She cooled it under the tap and rubbed the raised and broken edges of the cut. Darkness folded her in a cloak of invisibility. She stumbled back to bed. She'd trade anything for his life. She'd break all the rules and dive the length and breadth of effort for good or ill, to have him back.

oOo 

The Shrieking Shack was a looming, stalwart sentinel to grief. Inside, dust motes floated decaying spirals like lazy, miniature moths. The pool glittered freshly in the light of false dawn. Spots of clear wood began to appear. Droplets levitated until they were a wand's breadth off the floor and disappeared, until there were clean spots the size of Galleons.

oOo 

Hermione woke. A shaft of sunlight fell over her face. Sweet, unknowing, unfeeling peace died as memory resurfaced. The cut in her palm was hot. _There must be an infection,_ she thought _._

The castle was still quiet at noon. The straggling, pale individuals that stayed behind now were the ones who'd fought and lived, those without homes and parents, those in need of sanctuary. The great hall was a graveyard ruin of broken stone. Tables were set up in the Room of rRquirement. People seemed unsure – should they be respectfully quiet or jubilant in their victory? The atmosphere settled into an uneasy truce between the two.

Hermione tried to bury her shock and grief in a book but she soon realised she was only staring at the page, trying to hide her puffy eyes. When Harry finally made an appearance, the hall erupted into hesitant cheering which swelled like the tide. Harry was buffeted from hand to hand before he finally reached his seat. He looked exhausted.

That afternoon, McGonagall organised those who were fit to help into teams. Hermione went with the teachers to repair the castle. It wasn't long before carpenters arrived to help, relatives began to trickle in and undertakers arrived by Portkey to claim the dead. The ghosts whizzed back and forth and even a few centaurs stayed, braving the stairs to assist.

Hermione levitated great clumps of debris out of the halls, onto the grounds to be incinerated or reformed by the builders, her mind numb. She had only just gained some control over her tears. Seeing the fallen all around almost made her wish she'd joined them. She worked through dinner, until the pain and hunger took precedence. She let her head pound, knowing this discomfort could never match the agony of her loss.

oOo

Hermione watched the bloody sunset through shattered glass and wet eyes. Streaks of arterial red and dead pink rent the sky, broken only by the innocent clouds. As the sun sank away, she sank too and wept in an alcove. She thought she'd burst with all the poison inside her. The pain would never end. She'd feel it every day for the rest of her life. She'd eaten nothing and drunk little when she went down to the dungeons and collapsed beside his body.

She was immeasurably angry to find that someone had touched him, arranged his arms as though he were sleeping peacefully. Tears poured forth. She put her head down on his belly and touched his resting hand. He seemed unnaturally damp. The dungeon moisture must have collected on him, she realised, as torturous hope once again kindled and died inside her.

She tried not to think about his eyes. Close up they had flecks of brown, they were so human, not black at all like she'd first thought. How they _burned_ , intense and intelligent. Boiling, fiery, biological need had grown between them. She couldn't block the memories. She wanted to tear them out and throw them far away where they couldn't hurt her any more, but the memories kept this survivable.

She clung to them, angry and afraid in a visceral way she'd never felt before. She played the images over and over despite the pain. When she tried to sleep it was a frustrated, troubled rest. She woke often in tears and greeted the dawn feeling no better, but mercifully, no worse.

oOo

The Shrieking Shack went silent as dawn approached. A thin sheen of dust levitated a micron above the diminishing pool. It parted every time a drop of blood rose. By the time the sun had risen, the blood was gone and the dust had settled.

oOo

The scent of breakfast turned Hermione's stomach. Pale, tight-faced families stood useless. Hermione couldn't see the book she was holding. Her eyes were full of tears.

'The funeral is this afternoon,' McGonagall stopped her on the way to Gryffindor tower. 'I'll have someone sent to prepare him.'

Hermione swallowed hard. She had never noticed how rough the pages of some books were. She ran the pad of her thumb over the one she held. _I don't want them to touch him,_ she thought, but she nodded obediently.

She fell into step beside two white-robed undertakers. She didn't care that Ron was peering over the balcony, his face twisted in hurt and confusion. She wondered if Harry could explain it to him, since Ron was too stupid to see for himself.

The bed was empty. 'No!' she pushed past the undertakers. The shroud was thrown back like he'd just gotten up.

Feverishly, she checked every room, every cupboard, blasting open doors that wouldn't give. 'He's gone!' she yelled. She could feel the tears on her face. 'Somebody must have taken his body!'

She ran up the stairs. Had they buried him already? What if she'd missed it? What if they'd taken his body? The _traitor_ , the _Death Eater_? Frantic, she burst into the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey seized her by the shoulders and held her at arms length.

'Severus...where is he?' Hermione demanded.

'Downstairs,' she said quickly. 'I haven't ordered him moved. What _are_ you talking about, girl?'

'He's gone. Someone's taken him! Professor, _please!_ '

Hermione wrenched herself free of the nurse's arms.

'Now, now, Miss Granger. I hate to speculate but it's probably just a mistake or at the worst, an insensitive practical joke.'

'A practical joke?' Hermione's face twisted. 'I'll _kill_ them.'

'Calm down, now, miss Granger. And stay here.'

Hermione curled up in an oversized armchair, her eyes closed, her forehead on her knees. She couldn't stop worrying about the awful things they might do to him. She cried softly, wetting her knees.

The teachers searched. Nobody found him. They even looked in the dungeon shackles, the incinerator and the bins. The funeral directors swore on their wands that they hadn't buried Severus Snape. Hermione's tea sat untouched. Harry pulled her into a hug.

'You never told us,' he said a bit resentfully.

'Would you have forgiven me?' she choked, the first words she had spoken all day. 'I'm so sorry, Harry, I'm so sorry...I _couldn't_.'

Harry rubbed her back. 'Ron?' he asked softly, in a voice that suggested he was expecting a bad reaction.

'I...I thought...' she shook her head. 'It was Severus, always Severus...he, Ron I mean...Oh Harry he was just _there_.'

'You'll break his heart,' said the Boy Who Lived.

'I know!' she sobbed, 'I know, I don't want to Harry...I do love Ron like my brother...but...'

'I understand,' he said. 'I'm sorry, 'Mione. They can't find him. They insist they haven't buried him, they even dug up the first grave to find out-'

'Oh Harry...that's _horrible.'_

'I don't think they want you to know this, but they don't know what's happened.'

'Harry,' she whispered urgently, pulling away, 'Do you think they took him...and-' the words she wanted to say would not come easily, ' _damaged_ him, Harry? Do you?'

'I don't know. We'll do our best, for you. He died for us, we owe him that.'

Hermione nodded dumbly.

'Come on,' said Harry, rubbing her shoulder, 'Come have some dinner? Please? You can't starve up here alone...we're all grieving. Let's at least comfort each other, eh?'

He held her hand tightly all the way to the room of requirement.

oOo

Hermione played with her food, scratching intermittently at her prickling palm. She broke away as soon as she could and went back to the dungeon to run her hand down his bed. She picked up the shroud, disturbing settled dust, and after a moment, curled up on the bed in it and wept until there were no more tears and she was exhausted. Strange noises haunted her sleep. Curious flashes, in which stood familiar shadows. Once she woke, certain that someone had crossed the room. She stared blearily at the solid wall and hated herself for her stupid hope. It wasn't until she'd rubbed her eyes and focused on the floor that she saw the blood. She curled tightly up in terror.

She lit her wand in a tremulous whisper. She dipped a fingertip into it and recoiled in horror. It was still warm. An elf? An animal?

'Severus?' she breathed. 'Severus. _Don't torture me!'_ she yelled. The dungeon room stayed silent until dawn. She didn't sleep again.

oOo

Hermione tried not to look at the coffins. Was he in one of them? Had someone tricked her? She couldn't think of anyone still within the castle who'd do something so cruel.

She went so deep into the dungeons that she could hear water and the blackness was so intense that she wondered if she'd left her world and entered another. There was a freezing obsidian lake down there but no sign or sound of life. She went back to the surface, walking familiar corridors as memories tumbled through her head uncontrollably. Stolen evenings and gentle whispers in places nobody ever dared to go.

She sat at the feet of Salazar Slytherin's likeness with her head in her hands. It was then that a ripple caught her eye. The wide, arched doorway that lead to his private rooms was visible – somebody had been inside recently. She drew her wand.

'Redemption,' she whispered the password. It swung open.

She heard the distant _tap_ and _pop_ of booby-traps deactivating as she padded the length of a short corridor and pushed open the inner door with her trainer toe. A single candle guttered in the predatory black, struggling for life. There was blood on the floor, like a trail of breadcrumb droplets to the bedroom. A freezing sweat broke out all over her body.

Her palm burned.

His quill _scritched_ unsteadily across the page. She seized, so stunned that her lungs froze. Her heart restarted with a sickening shock of adrenaline that made her naueseous. She grabbed the doorframe.

'S-Severus-' she choked. He stood up like an old man, bent almost double only to collapse into bed. His robes were open to his pale chest and the broken red smile at his throat leaked rivulet sof blood that stained the sheets, only to disappear. He reached for her. His fingers twitched as though he wanted to gesture and couldn't find the coordination. Her knees gave. She hit the floor with a hiss of pain. If she'd broken something, she didn't care.

The blood on his shirt disintegrated slowly, forming tiny clear patches which were soon filled in. She couldn't bear the smell but she took his hand anyway. He was so cold.

'Miss Granger-' the voice was cracked and rough, a harsh baritone whisper forced through dead vocal chords. Sardonic as ever. 'Not your finest hour. Your problem solving is better than _this._ '

'Severus!' she choked.

He gazed at her closely through eyes flecked with popped, red veins. His ever-pale lips quirked into a smile that she returned compulsively.

'Hermione,' he whispered tenderly. 'You should see it.'

'See what?' she sobbed, grabbing him, trying to convince herself he was still alive. _Moving,_ she realised. _Not alive._

'The next world.'

Hermione shook her head, 'You can't...you can't leave again. _Please.'_

She noticed his skin, shrunk back from his nails, his teeth, too long at the root. He wasn't dead and he wasn't alive. He was something in between.

'Someone called me back,' his voice cleared a little with use but the gargle of blood in his throat persisted. 'I never told you the truth. Everything I was too much of a coward to say.'

'Say?' her breath hitched.

'I love you,' he murmured, his eyes alight. 'I do,' he gurgled. 'It just took me too long to see it.'

'No,' she grasped him by his neck. His blood began to disappear from her hands, too. It was flowing back into his veins, keeping him alive, but this existence was only half a life. A curse. 'I _can't._ I don't want you to die, Severus, _please.'_

'Y-You remember what we said?' he arched a thin black brow and grasped the hand he'd cut to seal their bond.

'Yes,' she moaned. This pain in her heart was worse than loss, and grief, because neither of them could rest.

'I put a stopper in death,' he grinned, his eyes drifting closed. 'Damn Albus and his bloody resurrection stone. Kill me, Hermione. I _need_ to _die._ '

'What do you think I am!?' She protested.

'Brave,' he smiled gently, without missing a beat. 'Beautiful. Loyal. Kind. Please. I shouldn't be alive. I can't even do it myself!' he held out a naked wrist to show her a broad razor cut. _'Please.'_

'I don't want to be alone,' she sobbed.

'I'll be with you,' he promised. 'Do it.'

'No,' she squeezed her eyes shut.

'Do. It,' he said, so close to her ear that she felt his frozen breath stir the baby-fine hairs at her hairline.

Hermione kissed him, trembling. His lips tasted of blood and felt like cold chicken, fresh from the fridge. She wrenched away.

'I'm so sorry,' she pressed her wand-tip to his forehead. _'Avada Kedavra!'_

oOo

Hermione sat in a pool of his sticky cold blood, his limp, white hand hanging in her peripheral vision. Shaking, she drew her wand tip over her wrist, whispering a spell that made a jagged cut. Arterial blood poured onto her jeans. Death was more painful than she'd expected, but much faster. As her blood flowed away, the cold encroached like Dementors breath under her skin. The room devolved into fuzzy monotone as she noted the unique smell of potions ingredients, combined with dirt and sweet, sickly rot. She knew instinctively that it wasn't a physical smell. She dissolved into white light and Severus snatched her by the shoulders. No matter how hard she tried he wouldn't let her turn around and look at him.

'You bloody dunderhead!' He thrust her back into life.

She woke up in terrible pain, deprived of oxygen, with a lungful of vomit, on a flagstone floor that was so cold it made her bones hurt. Her wrists were swathed in improvised bandages, made from torn up bedsheets. She could hardly see for the pain in her head.

'In too much of a hurry,' said Severus' disembodied voice in her mind, as mediwitches crowded around. 'As _usual.'_


End file.
